The loading and unloading of the cargo bed of an automotive vehicle, such as for example a pick-up truck or sport utility, involves changing the elevation of articles between the ground and the cargo bed, wherein the cargo bed is ordinarily a few feet higher than the ground. This frequently involves lifting and lowering motions by one or more persons to effect the loading/unloading of the one or more articles with respect to the cargo bed.
In many cases, the articles being conveyed to and from the cargo bed are wheeled, and the conveyance thereof can be eased by utilization of one or more ramps. In this regard, a narrow ramp may provide cargo bed conveyance of a single or in-line wheeled article, as for example a wheel barrow, bicycle or motor cycle. And in this regard further, a wide ramp or a pair of mutually spaced narrow ramps may provide cargo bed conveyance of left-right wheeled articles, as for example a golf cart, an all terrain vehicle, or garden tractor, as well as specialty vehicles, as for example a snow mobile.
While ramps of the aforesaid types are known in the art, and may be in the form of commercially manufactured ramps, or simply in the form of home-made planks or plywood, the problem associated therewith is the vehicular storage thereof when not in use. This storage problem is significant in terms of where in the vehicle the ramps can be stored and yet leave cargo space not adversely affected thereby. Certainly, ramps left at home do not help when articles need to be conveyed with respect to the cargo bed and the vehicle is not at home, but is rather somewhere away on the road.
Accordingly, what remains needed in the art is a ramp system which can somehow be stored easily in the vehicle without taking up valuable cargo space.